“My understanding is it is a paraphrase of conversations that
happened,” he told CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife. “I’ve had them
described to me from someone who is no longer here.” The Feb. 20 email describes a secret deal to have Harper’s then-chief
of staff Nigel Wright personally bail out Duffy, a Conservative senator
who improperly claimed $90,172 in living expenses and faced the public
release of an audit of his spending.

In the email, Duffy tells his lawyer that Wright worked out a
“scenario” where all of his invalid expenses would be covered, including
“cash for the repayment.” Under the arrangement, Duffy would claim that he personally repaid his
debt to taxpayers and the government would use its influence to blunt
the outcome of the external audit.

A Conservative-dominated Senate committee subsequently whitewashed a
damning audit report on Duffy’s expenses, which highlighted problems
with his residency claims and per diems collected when he wasn’t in
Ottawa on Senate business.

After CTV News broke the story, Wright resigned and Duffy left the Conservative caucus to sit as an Independent.